The present disclosure relates generally to a command-generating method and, more specifically, to using text to generate commands.
In recent years, graphics editors and drawing tools have become command-rich, making it possible to perform finely honed operations. Menus have become more hierarchically organized as the number of functions has increased, and operations themselves have become increasingly multi-layered. In an environment with an abundance of commands, it is difficult to select the desired command and manipulate an object
Methods have been adopted in which shortcuts are assigned to specific commands. However, the number of shortcuts is limited. Also, even when shortcuts are assigned, it is difficult for a user to remember a large number of shortcuts. Forcing the user to remember this many shortcuts and engage in complex mouse operations is hard on inexperienced users.
Input method editors (IME) are known that have functions (Suggest/Auto Complete/Contents Assist) for monitoring character strings inputted into an object and presenting an anticipated character string. They also have functions for converting inputted text into registered graphic strings such as pictograms and emoticons. A method has also been disclosed in Non-patent Literature 1 which is used to create graphic objects from handwritten inputs, but a method with exceptional usability for generating commands for objects has yet to be provided.
An object manipulating method of the prior art is described with reference to FIG. 1. Using a drawing tool 180, the user 190 enters text for an object, or generates, changes or deletes an object. The inputted character string 110 entered by the user 190 using a keyboard is usually transferred to an IME 185 to convert the character string or complete the character string to obtain a completion candidate character string 120. After a confirmation operation 130 has been performed, the candidate character string is inputted to the drawing tool 180 via the application programming interface (API) as a confirmed character string 140. When the user 190 manipulates an object using the drawing tool 180, an object is selected (150) using a pointing device such as a mouse, and the drawing tool 180 responds by displaying a dialog box showing selectable attributes (160). The user selects the desired attributes (170), and finally confirms the input by the drawing tool 180 of attributes for the object. In the method of the prior art, the input of text and the input of object attributes are completely separate. In other words, text is inputted using the keyboard, and object attributes are selected and confirmed using a pointer.